MIKE BURKE
Allegany Communications Sports
Yesterday, 78 years after he broke baseball’s color barrier, Major League Baseball again remembered Jackie Robinson, having formally established April 15 as Jackie Robinson Day in 2004.
In 1997, on the 50th anniversary of Robinson’s first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers, MLB celebrated him by retiring his number 42 throughout the big leagues, with players who were wearing No. 42 at the time being permitted to wear it through the end of their terms with their current teams.
Eric Davis, then an outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles, said he appreciated the tribute, but wondered on that day if it would be another 50, or even another 10 years before we would remember Robinson again, pointing to the declining rate of Black ballplayers in the major leagues.
That rate continued to decline from 8.4% in 1997 to 6.2% on Opening Day 2025, which represents a slight increase from 6.0% in 2024. There are 59 Black players on active and inactive lists, with an additional 18 in the minor leagues on MLB 40-man rosters.
While the percentage has fluctuated, it remains historically low compared to past decades. In 1991, the percentage of Black MLB players was estimated to be around 18%, which was the highest on record.
Given all he had to endure, Jackie Robinson seemingly wouldn’t be happy about this. Perhaps, though, he would be hopeful in knowing there are other avenues for Blacks now that weren’t readily open for them in 1947.
Of course, there remain too many others that are not open and seemingly never will be, because … Well, shame on you if you pretend not to know.
Jackie Robinson lived his life for inclusion and freedom of choice for all people in all phases of life. And in sports, if football (which Robinson starred in, as well as in track, at UCLA) is a young person’s game of choice, he now has the freedom to pursue it. The same is true for basketball, baseball and any other sport that is available for kids to play and excel in.
Yesterday was the 78th anniversary of Jackie Robinson opening doors that weren’t open to everybody before, but Eric Davis was right in his belief that we should remember Jackie Robinson every day. As a matter of fact, former player Barry Bonds may have put the anniversary in the best perspective.
“What does it mean to all African American players? I don’t think only African American athletes should be answering the question,” Bonds said in 2007. “Some of the white ballplayers should be answering as well. We already know what it means to us. We’ve answered that question a thousand times over. The question is what has it done for the game of baseball?
“Baseball is the American pastime. We have more Asian players, more Hispanic players, more Canadian players, more European players.”
In fact, 40 percent of major league rosters are composed of Hispanic, Black and Asian ballplayers.
“Baseball is for everyone,” Bonds said, “and Jackie Robinson was at the forefront of all the changes.”
Actually, Jackie Robinson was not the first Black to play professional baseball at the major league level. That would have either been Moses Fleetwood Walker or William Edward White. Walker, who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association, a professional baseball league now considered a major league by most baseball historians, made his major league baseball debut on May 1, 1884 against the Louisville Eclipse.
Research indicates, however, that White, who played one game for the Providence Grays in 1879, may have been the first Black major league player. The son of a white former slaveholder from Georgia and his mixed-race mistress, White attended college at Brown University where he also played varsity baseball. He filled in for one game for the Grays on June 21, 1879 when the Providence team was short-handed.
It is unclear if White’s contemporaries in Rhode Island knew of his race as it was never mentioned in any accounts of his baseball career at Brown or with Providence. Furthermore, the 1880 census, as well as several later censuses, indicate his race as “white,” but he may have been passing as a white man during his time in Rhode Island.
As for Walker, shortly after he was released by Syracuse in July of 1889, the American Association and the National League both unofficially banned Black players, making the adoption of Jim Crow in baseball complete. Baseball would remain segregated until 1946 when Robinson played for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ minor league affiliate in Montreal.
Thus, it was curious that for over 40 years Jackie Robinson’s plaque In the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York had no mention of his place in American history for breaking the color barrier in 1947, which may have been the result of Robinson’s own wishes, as he said in a 1962 interview prior to his election, “I hope that I will be judged on my ball playing ability alone, not on the fact that I broke the color line;” and the Hall might have followed suit with the wording of his plaque.
In the end it was Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, who felt the time was right to update the historical record on the plaque despite her husband’s wishes four decades earlier, and in June 2008, the new plaque was unveiled, with the inscription concluding with, “Displayed tremendous courage and poise in 1947 when he integrated the modern Major Leagues in the face of intense adversity.”
Which is a very mild way of describing the bigotry, the hatred and the ignorance that he fought every day.
Thus, it’s important to remember that while the sentiment of the original inscription was that he was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame, it is even more important that the current inscription states he was given the chance to be as good as he was to open the door for thousands of others, of all races, to receive their chance as well.
Jackie Robinson was a man who stood and fought for inclusion, and it’s important to remember that every day, particularly in this, um … erratic time of our history.
Jackie Robinson won his fight, and because he did, baseball, as Barry Bonds said, is for everyone.
And that’s what America was built on – everyone.
Mike Burke writes about sports and other stuff for Allegany Communications. He began covering sports for the Prince George’s Sentinel in 1981 and joined the Cumberland Times-News sports staff in 1984, serving as sports editor for over 30 years. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on X @MikeBurkeMDT